The invention of this application relates to a method of fungistatic/antibacterial treatment particularly suitable for sewed goods like clothes.
Heretofore, for making fungistatic/antibacterial treatment uniformly on textures of clothes, clothes have been sewed, employing textures woven with yarns subjected to fungistatic/antibacterial treatment or textures subjected to such a treatment.
In whichever case, since the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment is to be performed before the texture is sewed, this treatment is not made at all on such addenda as sewing thread, woven label tape, fastener, button and button hole or the like which are attached to the clothes. Even such addenda include trousers"" fastener, which is situated in a position nearest to the private parts, where the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment is required more than the other locations.
In recent years, attempts have been made to remedy the present situation, and for the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment to cover every corner of clothes, there have been being proposed procedures to make the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment after the clothes have been sewed. Proposed, for example, has been a fungistatic/antibacterial treatment process which comprises loading sewed clothes on a belt conveyer, to move them successively, applying fungistatic/antibacterial agents on the clothes by spraying the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals on them from spray nozzles installed midway in the conveying course, and thereafter, drying the clothes on the conveyer by blowing hot air in a drying apparatus installed beyond the conveyer stand, thereby accomplishing the operation.
For the aforementioned conveyer, netted one should be used for draining the water content attributable to the chemicals or the moistening done for their permeation.
Despite such ingenious measures taken, it was difficult to get the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals firmly stuck on the completely sewed clothes readily and evenly. This was because even a netted conveyer prevents the sprayed fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals from properly and appropriately permeating into every corners of the clothes due to the contact of these parts with the conveyer, or conversely their contact with the conveyer makes it difficult to let oversticking chemicals drip off to drain.
On this account, when it was intended to cover such an addendum as a fastener by a single fungistatic/antibacterial treatment once and for all, to meet the request for performing such a treatment on large quantity of sewed clothes, it couldn""t be helped but to tolerate some uneven application of the chemicals.
Besides, because of the difficulty getting the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals positively and firmly stuck to clothes, the chemicals tend to be removed by sweating or several times washing, This disadvantage must also be tolerated as inevitable.
Where the woven label tape only is concerned, the name is stitched or printed on a plurality of tape segments, to produce the label tape of this kind. Such a long label tape could not be efficiently treated, resulting in difficulty applying adequate fungistatic/antibacterial treatment with high washability. If treated tape is stitched or printed, result is untreated thread or ink left in the cloth.
This situation is not only undesirable with sewed goods like common clothes, but with those for medical uses which involve such grave issues as hospital infection, etc.
Particularly, the bacterial hospital infection called MRSA is caused by methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus. Persons administered antibiotics, post-operation patients, and the aged or children who have weak immunity tend to contract infectious diseases. Once they are infected by the aforementioned bacteria, antibiotics will lose their effectuality, and no therapeutic remedy will be found. The infection route is such that the pathogenic bacteria directly infiltrate into the body through damaged parts of mucous membrane or skin. Such an infiltration of pathogenic bacteria causes infectious diseases of dermal soft tissues such as hidradenitis suppurativa, perirectal abscess, lymphadenitis and purulentdenitis, etc. If this infection reaches to deep locations, it will bring about purulent arthritis or medullary disease, which lead to sepsis or infectious disease endcarditis as post-operation respiratory or urinary tract or systemic infectious disease, which may invite hard-to-cure contagious diseases which may cause death. Accordingly, such hospital infections will pose as an unoverlookable dreadful issue.
Thus the present invention is intended to provide a means to permit fungistatic/antibacterial agents to be firmly stuck evenly and positively on sewed clothes to undergo the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment, for resolution of the aforementioned problems.
A first invention of this application provides a method of fungistatic/antibacterial treatment of sewed goods characterized by the steps of applying fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals on sewed goods such as clothes, etc. by getting the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals deposited on or permeated into the sewed goods, and thereafter heating this sewed goods in the state of being arranged in the air, thereby firmly setting the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals in place on and in the sewed goods. Since in the first invention of this application, the sewed goods with the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals applied are dried in the state of being arranged in the air, uneven permeation of fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals which usually results from contacts with external objects after application of fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals and before drying the sewed goods may be precluded.
A second invention of this application provides the method of fungistatic/antibacterial treatment of sewed goods of the aforementioned first invention wherein the process of applying the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals is characterized by the steps comprising a primary dipping of dipping the sewed goods in the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals, a primary extraction for draining the sewed goods subjected to the primary dipping, a secondary dipping of again dipping in the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals the sewed goods subjected to the primary extraction and a secondary extraction for draining the sewed goods subjected to the secondary dipping. The second invention of this application can assure positive and uniform deposition of the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals on the sewed goods, thereby precluding loss of the fungistatic/antibacterial effect which otherwise is unavoidably caused by frequent washing.
A third invention of this application provides the method of fungistatic/antibacterial treatment of sewed goods of either the aforementioned first or second invention, wherein the heating process is characterized in that the sewed goods are heated by transferring the sewed goods in a heater housing in the state of being hung from hangers which are supported by a conveyer member circulating at least through the heater housing, said hanger comprising a central portion provided with a hook and right and left arms extending to right and left from this central portion, with a means for opening/closing the right and left arms provided at the central portion, such that when hanging the sewed goods on the hanger, the right and left arms are closed, and put into the sewed goods, and thereafter they are opened, to hang it in their open state. According to this third invention, the opening/closing of the arms of the hanger permits efficient hanging and removal of clothes, thereby affording improved efficiency of the treatment process.
A fourth invention of this application provides the treatment method of sewed goods according to either one of respective inventions mentioned above, wherein the heating process is characterized by the steps comprising low temperature heating and high temperature heating done at higher temperatures than the former, with the sewed goods heated while being continuously moved from a low temperature through a high temperature heater housing. By conducting the heating in two steps in this manner, favorable drying by heating is realized, with enhanced fixed adsorption of the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals.
A fifth invention of this application provides the method of fungistatic/antibacterial treatment of sewed goods according to either one of the aforementioned first, second or fourth invention, characterized in that the sewed goods is a long strip such as a woven label tape on which one or more names is or are stitched or printed in series, and that this long strip is transferred in the state of being arranged extending in the air space of the heater housings. With regard to intermediate products like woven label tape, the treatment may be performed more efficiently in this way than separately treating the cloth tape and the thread for stitching the name.
A sixth invention of this application provides the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment method of the sewed goods according to the aforementioned fifth invention characterized in that in the heating process, a support for long strips for movably supporting long strips is moved while being held by a conveyer member arranged at least in the heater housing; the transfer by means of the conveyer member of the support for long strips in the state of being arranged in the heater housing at adequate intervals is stalled, and then the long strips are held on the stalling support for long strips, thereafter letting the long strips move in the state of being arranged in the air space of the heater housing. This invention permits the long strip to be efficiently arranged in place by means of the conveyer member, so that the change-over of process from usual clothes to long strips may be readily made, merely using the support for long strips in place of hangers.
A seventh invention of this application provides the treatment method of sewed goods according to either one of the aforementioned first, second or fourth invention, characterized in that the sewed goods are long strips each of a label tape having a woven label or a series of woven labels, etc. The seventh invention of this application permits the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment to be made efficiently rather than separately subjecting the cloth tape and the name stitching thread or the printing ink to the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment, when handling such an intermediate product as woven label, etc.
An eighth invention provides an installation for the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment of sewed goods comprising a means for applying the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals on the sewed goods such as sewed clothes, etc. by depositing or permeating the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals thereon or thereinto and a heating treatment means for heating the sewed goods endowed with the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals in the state of being arranged in the air space. According to the eighth invention of this application, the drying of the sewed goods endowed with the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals is performed in the state of them being arranged in the space. This has made it possible to provide an installation for the fungistatic/antibacterial treatment capable of precluding uneven permeation of the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals which usually arises from the contacts of the sewed goods with external bodies before drying after application of the fungistatic/antibacterial chemicals.